Brew Buzz
Beer moves beyond the pour into creative pairings, innovative recipes, and full-bodied cocktails.
Jeffery Lindenmuth
Posted: February 20, 2009
Beer lovers are an ancient breed. Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology have identified chemical evidence of beer in pottery vessels from western Iran dating to 3500 B.C. These original beer fans, however, could hardly have imagined the creative ferment that would lead modern brewers, sommeliers, and chefs to maneuver the primal potion onto a 21st century parade of bar and restaurant trends.
BEER GOES GREEN
"Green beer" may conjure images of St. Patrick's Day overkill, but for Deborah Gavito, owner of Counter, it connotes plenty of suitable suds for her organic vegetarian Manhattan bistro. "When we opened five years ago, there were only a handful of organic beers," recalls Gavito, "but for the first Organic Beer Bash in 2007 we offered 30 organic beers and ciders, and for 2008 we upped that number to 44." The annual fête seeks to include every available organic beer not just in pint glasses but also as star component in the house's Peak Nut Brown Ale pecan pie and cocktails like the Grizzly Beer (2 ounces Highland Harvest Organic Whisky, 1/4 ounce lemon juice, 1/4 ounce simple syrup, and several drops of Tabasco hot pepper sauce shaken with ice, strained into a mug, and topped with 5 ounces Orlio Organic Common Ale).
While Counter's beverage program includes 300 organic wines, Gavito notes that when it comes to matchmaking with the restaurant's small plates, organic beers are her first choice because of their diverse styles and flavors, from spicy wheat beers to roasty dark lagers: "I enjoy pairing beer with our corn beignets, chickpea fries, or pommes frites. What could be more natural together than fried foods with beer?" Gavito also suggests pairing complementary flavors found in specialty beers that would never occur with wine, for example Wolaver's Organic Will Stevens' Pumpkin Ale with Counter's butternut squash and citrus "cigar."
Great Sage, in Clarksville, Maryland, conducts vegetarian beer dinners for sell-out crowds, creating meat-free partners for Clipper City's (Baltimore) Oxford Organic Ales or the organic beers of British brewer Samuel Smith, for example. "With more boutique organic beers on the market, the available flavor profiles are all over the place and can do well with a variety of vegetarian dishes. Vegetarian foods can have robust flavor too," insists Holly Kaufman, co-owner and managing partner. For their most recent dinner, Great Sage paired vegan "chicken" schnitzel (made with seitan) and lemon/caper sauce with a Pinkus Organic Hefeweizen, matching the lemony acidity of the sauce to the wheat beer's intrinsic tartness. While many beers are certified organic, the challenges of vegetarian and vegan require extra research because some beers use egg whites or isinglass, made from fish, as fining agents. These menu matchups offer a chance for Kaufman and her clients to taste and learn about the dietary complexities of their favorite quaff.
PROGRESSIVE PAIRINGS
Sommeliers like to imagine they can find the perfect wine for almost any food, but when it comes to chocolates, pickles, or bacon, Jimmy Carbone, owner of Jimmy's No. 43 in Manhattan's East Village, reaches for a brew. A trained sommelier, Carbone has become reconciled that his interest in great beer rivals his fondness for fine wine, especially the beers of Germany and Belgium, which tend to dominate the restaurant's 12 taps. "Fine wine is an acquired taste, and it involves as much intellect, geography, and backstory as actual sensory experience. I think beer is more about appreciating what's in your mouth," asserts Carbone. Perhaps because, unlike wine, which most often must rely on nature to achieve its pinnacle, beer is crafted to a recipe, the formulated bringing together of carefully chosen ingredients to produce an end product of balance, creativity, and style.
With his penchant for local products and a Slow Food NYC Snail of Approval in his lapel, pairing oddball beers with artisanal foods seemed natural for Carbone. At a November beer and bacon tasting, salted pork and suds collided and colluded as imbibers mixed and matched Berkshire Bacon from New York City's R.U.B. and Burger's Smokehouse Country Pork Jowl (California, Missouri) with Italian Grado Plato Strada S. Felici chestnut beer from Piedmont or Alvinne Melchior, a strong Belgian mustard beer, to single out just a few. Another recent tasting brought together the Belgian-style beers of Brewery Ommegang in Cooperstown, New York, with a quintet of not so traditional pickles from Rick's Picks in a tasting priced at $45: with dried cherries and ginger replacing much of the sugar of your traditional bread and butter pickles, Rick's Pick's Bee 'n' Beez complimented the fig and honey flavors of Ommegang's Abbey Ale, and the tangy sweet rosemary scented brine of the Phat Beets paired well with the rich and unusual blend of malty ale and cherry lambic in Ommegang's Three Philosophers.
SOMMELIER'S DARLING
A new generation of at once astute and open-minded sommeliers will never slight a customer's craving for an icy Budweiser. Fred Dexheimer, national wine and beverage director for BLT Restaurants, approaches his beer lists for chef/restaurateur Laurent Tourondel's BLT Burger (New York City, Las Vegas) concept the same way he selects wine, offering the familiar alongside the boutique and focusing only on brands that represent the benchmark for their style. "There are a lot more Bud drinkers than microbrew drinkers, and we're looking to please as many people as we can," Dexheimer explains. "It's important to bring something for the beer geeks, but also for the people who love large iconic American brands."
In Las Vegas, the beer list at BLT Burger includes über brands like Budweiser, local favorite Sin City, and elite imports such as Belgium's Chimay Cinq Cents, which sells for $9 the glass, $34 the pitcher. "There's a balance of styles and flavors, something for everyone. The higher priced offerings are important because the average check here is only $22. You can only eat so much, and great beer is a way to bring that check up," reasons Dexheimer. For thrifty diners, a handful of no-nonsense canned beers, like Pabst Blue Ribbon and Schlitz ($4), bring great value along with a certain hipster cachet.
NOT COOKING WITH BEER
After five years of tinkering with Samuel Adams beers in the kitchen, chef/restaurateur David Burke has found many ways to include a spectrum of seasonal beers. But he prefers not to cook them: "What I've found works really well is to not heat the beers, but to leave them as they are, mixed in a vinaigrette. Or I gelatinize Summer Ale and include it on a dessert plate." It's not about just replacing wine with beer in a recipe, says Burke. In the case of Samuel Adams' record-breaking beer Utopias, which can retail for as much as $150 a bottle (and has auctioned on eBay for as high as $600 a bottle) and tops 25 percent alcohol by volume, Burke decided to create a Utopias "Jell-O shot." "I just couldn't bring myself to cook it."
Before celery, peas, and mushrooms met the iSi charger, beer was the original foam. Inspired by this, Burke scoops the head from a cold one and tops it on his burgers, hot dogs, and fish and chips for a hint of flavor and fun texture. When Burke does put beer to burner, for a barbecue or meat sauce, for example, he advises against overreducing. Maple syrup or brown sugar, he adds, are his favorite ingredients to balance beer's inherent bitterness.
"When you think about it, beer is already a sauce. I hadn't understood the full flavor spectrum of beer, but you look at brewers like Jim Koch of Samuel Adams and he's using the finest spices and making innovative beers. Brewers are like the ultimate sauciers," Burke concludes. And, no surprise, every bit as beloved today as they were 5,000 years ago.
